For most of my stories on BC, I have done exactly the same. My reasons are not that complex. When I publish a story on BC, it is the best I can make it. I’ll have spent months, sometimes years, writing it, improving it and then improving it some more to the best of my ability. I hope that many will enjoy reading it and I do appreciate readers saying how much they enjoy my story, but I really don’t want to read comments about how it could be improved or further developed. There is an excellent feedback mechanism on BC other than comments, the Kudos button at the end of every story. It’s easy to use and provides a much more objective analysis of my stories.

So, I have usually published my stories with comment disabled, but I always keep a carefully watch on the Kudos figure as it’s so much more useful than a few comments.

It was observing the high Kudos for one of my stories that caused me to write many more in a similar vein - my stories based upon Seacombe Independent Girls High School - generally my most popular ever.

Some readers choose to message me, and I have developed good friendships because of that. But no one has ever messaged me to give me their advice or to tell me my story stinks.

I think it’s unfortunate that comments have become so important on BC. I’ve seen authors bewailing that they only have nine comments on a story, but when you examine it, you discover they have 85 kudos, as though the 85 are unimportant. They are not. Comments may be wittering about all kinds of things hardly relevant to the story; the kudos is simply saying “Good Story”.

If you want to tell the author how good it was, then message them, but I hope you left the really significant message - a kudos.